Life threw me one of those curve balls in the week leading up to the race. It's funny how everything you know can change in the blink of an eye. I was stressed and hadn't had more than a handful of hours of sleep all week. The morning of the race I felt drained. You may know your body is off, but you have to put all that behind you when it comes race day.
My goal was not necessarily to win the race. I wanted to run a time similar to what Steve Wilson won with last time. I wanted to complete 8 laps. Wilson is a beast. I knew if I could run a time like his I would be in contention for the win anyway. The goal was to average a 44:22 lap time and finish in 5:55:00. I'm not a fan of the rule that you only count what you complete before 6 hours. That's not a true 6-hour format. It shouldn't be over until the leader finishes a lap after 6 hours. But the rules for this race are what they are and I adapted my strategy to them.
The Le Mans start was the first disaster of the day. There was a rectangular area ribboned off for us to place our bikes in. I purposely put my bike 3 spots from the far left so I could easily find it. Sometime after I placed my bike and took to the line, it was found that the rectangle was not big enough and so bikes were placed farther to the left. Off I go sprinting to the bikes to find everything looking different than it was when I left my bike there. My bike was now 8 from the left. The few extra seconds of searching put me near the back. Lucky for me, we did a parade lap around the peninsula that allowed me to move up to the top 20 before we hit the woods.
The first half-lap was a parade. My main competition got in ahead of the group I was stuck following. It was a pain in the ass to get by people. A few let me go, others raced me to the death for the position. I tried to take my time getting through and not waste energy. I finally got clear just before the silo parking lot. That gave me a little time to gain on the front runners. You can see so much at Lock 4 that it's easy to get a time check on your own. I timed myself at 1:24 back at the parking lot. I trimmed about 20 seconds off that by the end of the lap. First lap finished in 43 minutes. Even with the bad start I was right on schedule and now in the top 5.
Lap 2 was much of the same. I was alone now and slowly picking up time. My legs were feeling pretty good, but I was holding back and saving them for later. My heart rate was super high. I was holding back a lot and still running XC heart rates. I just couldn't get it down. I guess the body was just that beat up. All I could do was cross my fingers and hope I could hold that kind of heart rate for 6 hours. I was just over 30 seconds back ending lap 2, which was faster than my first lap at 42 minutes. Things were looking good, but then I started to feel it. My stomach started hurting and I was forced to back off. I dropped to 44 minutes, but still ahead of my goal. Then I hit the wall on lap 4. I got weak, nauseated, and my legs just fell apart. My lap time dropped to 47 minutes. It was only that fast because I was suffering like a dog and trying to ride through it, hoping later it would go away. I had been eating more than normal, and I believe that combined with the high heart rate was giving me the sick feeling. Lock 4 is not exactly what I would call my favorite place to race due to the people that congregate there. Seems they want to see me fail every time I go up there. They were very vocal about how much they enjoyed seeing me struggle. I just acted like I didn't hear it and kept turning over the pedals.
I made a short 1 minute stop after lap 4 to stretch. I had some cramping in my hamstrings and my big camelbak was killing my low back so I ditched it. I absolutely hate to stop, but I figured giving up one minute may help me feel better and make up several minutes on the trail. Things just got worse on lap 5. Up to that point, I was still ahead of my 44:22 average. I had my goal lap times wrote on my stem because doing math becomes very hard when you've been riding more than a few hours. So I knew after lap 5 that I wasn't going to make 8 laps. I felt like death, but I was not going to quit. Hell, I was still in 4th place! I took a long break after lap 5 to regroup. I took my Gatorade-RedBull mix bottle and went back out with Adam when he came by. I was hoping to grab his wheel and get back into a rhythm, but I had nothing. He rode away on the first climb. I stopped at the top and dry-heaved a bit. I wanted to throw up. It would've made me feel so much better, but it just wouldn't come.
My back was feeling better and I was holding off the cramps until I crashed with a slower rider down by the lake. It was a really tight, but still fast portion of the trail with a 10 foot bank on your left and lake to your right. I didn't even ask to pass because it was a bad spot. He locked up the brakes and I had no time to react. I ran right into him, then cramped when I tried to unclip my feet. I fell to the ground, unable to get up because both hamstrings were locked up. A rider behind us stopped and helped me get out of the trail. I tried to get up and get going, but the muscles were locked up. I sat on the side of the trail for several mintes rubbing my hammies and stretching. Finally, I was able to get up and get moving again. Dustin Burkeen came by and I hitched onto him, hoping to be able to hold the wheel of a familiar face. He hurt me on the climbs, but I held on and we finished the lap together.
The Dustin train. Burkeen leading me on lap 6.
I started to feel better early in lap 7. I was back to 7th or 8th place now. I don't know if it was the RedBull mix or what, but I came back to life. All of a sudden the legs felt good and I had energy! I went around Burkeen about 3 miles into the lap and set sail for Adam. I knew he was over 4 minutes ahead, but I wanted to try and catch him. To my surprise, I was on him just 3 miles later. He looked like we had reversed roles. He was hitting the wall as I felt like superman. I sprinted the entire last 3 miles. The legs felt numb. I could sprint a huge gear and there was no burn. That feeling was totally worth all the suffering I'd gone through up to that point. I even doubled a gap between two ditches that I have always wanted to make, but never had the speed to get me across. I ran over something with a mile to go and punctured my front tire. I had Stan's sealant in them. It sprayed out for a few minutes, but did seal the hole and I was able to finish on a low tire. The last lap effort pulled me back up to 4th place. Not bad for such a shitty day. I finished 7 laps in 5:25. There just wasn't enough time to get in that 8th lap I wanted.
Congrats to Tanner Hurst as he was able to hold a fast pace all day and get the win. Got to give some credit to Keith, the iron man of the day. He started running about 3 weeks ago and took on a half-marathon the morning of the 6 hour. He kocked off a 1:48 half-marathon, then drove over to Lock 4 and completed 3 laps on a team! You the man Keith!
Keith throwing down on the bike after smashing a half-marathon earlier that morning.
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